


Closer to Fine

by Pi (Rhea)



Category: No. 6 (Anime & Manga), No. 6 - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Reunion, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 12:36:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2812202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhea/pseuds/Pi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No. 6 is a shell, and in the aftermath of Elyuria's judgement life is the slow steady struggle of rebuilding, but Shion and the other refugees of the city and the West Block are striving for a new life. There's just one thing missing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Closer to Fine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [songofsunset](https://archiveofourown.org/users/songofsunset/gifts).



> Thanks to myira for betaing! This story was originally dictated as I contracted a repetitive stress injury while working on it (+work and other things). Dictation software is horrible for getting words right, but hopefully all inconsistencies and missing punctuation have been caught and fixed.

Rain comes down in a torrent just beyond the hazy curtain of moss. Shion sighs and huddles closer to himself. When No. 6 fell Shion couldn't have predicted his future would involve huddling in a cave miles from his home, but the reality is currently dripping down the back of his collar. Shion turns to look at the others clustering by the fire further back in the cave. They aren’t a very large scouting party, but No. 6 has few resources to spare and even fewer willing to volunteer to stray so far from the remains of the city. 

After Nezumi’s departure, Shion viciously applied himself to assisting where he could with reconstruction. Unfortunately, Shion has never been the strongest and he couldn’t help as much as he would have liked with the removal of rubble and the slow frustrating work of rebuilding infrastructure. After Elyurias’ judgment, No. 6 was left with a decimated population, broken buildings, and no direction for its own rebirth. Still many survivors had risen to the occasion. Shion's mother rallied in her own neighborhood, helping move in the homeless residents of the West Block. Shion spent much of those first few months completely distracted with working in the big communal kitchen appropriated from what once was a local restaurant. There still wasn't much food. The residents of No. 6 had never had to worry about where the next meal would come from. With no local resources, the shelves of the untended grocery store grew scarce. Residents of the West Block were more familiar with the circumstances of hunger, but they’d had their own food reserves. Now the West Block was even more of a ruin, and any meat or vegetable that might've survived the attacks in the market was long past rotted or taken by dogs. Even if Shion helped to feed the needy and hungry of both No. 6 and the West Block, there wasn't much more he could do as they ran out of flour and salt. As the days grew leaner, scouting parties were first suggested. Beyond No. 6’s walls, somewhere, there had been farms operated by the big rolling machines Shion remembers seeing in his advanced agricultural engineering class. With the fall of No. 6, Shion is sure they stand immobile but he shares the hope that if they leave the crumbled walls perhaps they can find that fertile land and start providing for their own subsistence. 

The first trip out isn't a success. Shion travels with two other men he doesn't know, residents of No. 6. One of them once programmed the great machines that farm the fields. They walk along the dusty road out into nowhere for hours. Eventually when the sun is high, Shion removes the small cake of bread his mother packed for him. It is not much to share, but with a little food and a little water they continue. As they walk, dust kicking up over their shoes, Shion thinks of Nezumi. Was this the road he traveled by? If there ever were footprints here besides their own, they’ve blown away in the dirt. There are so many roads leading out of No. 6. From the perspective of the West Block, No. 6 had looked like a monolith held apart from the rest of the world. When the walls fell they revealed paths that led off across the world, to other cities or destinations unknown, a web of connections scrawled out before them with few left to know where the end of each one lay. Under the bright stars, Shion curls in his coat, wondering at a sky he'd never truly studied, not even within the dark quiet of the West Block. He closes his eyes and imagines warm walls, the smell of soup, the sound of rustling pages and the occasional mouse chirp. With his coat drawn tight around him he sleeps. 

They return empty-handed, but another search party does not. The citizens of newly founded Lost Corner gather together to pour over their findings. Shion buries his hands in the thick ruff of one of Inukashi’s dogs. No. 6 maybe rebuilding elsewhere too, but Shion really only knows about the lives within the warm spell of light in the restaurant. Over a hundred people gather here, citizens of Lost Town or the West Block and stragglers from No. 6. Inukashi’s dogs twine around them, not nearly as many as the people, too many dead in the attack on the West Block. Inukashi sits in the circle of dogs, baby Shion tucked close in arm. As they talk, baby Shion coos and Inukashi bounces him a little. One field has been found, the machines ground to rusted stillness, their parts scattered. Shion suspects Elyurias’ will. Another team brings back bags full of oranges, words of fruit trees in rows miles wide. Together they spend the evening planning and preparing to send more people to bring more food. Again Shion volunteers. They need multiple scavenging parties, for the fields and orchards and for the west block. Shion takes the job of the fields. It’s farther away. Many West Block residents are willing to search through the rubble of their homes. Shion knows ostensibly they’re searching for usable items, that hidden stash of chickens the old woman Heena claims she had hidden under her house, but knows many of them are looking for old photos, bits of jewelry or beloved clothing, the detritus of their old lives. Shion does hope they miraculously find the chickens. They need protein. He’s done the slow smelly work by shifting debris, burning the dead, and gathering the few fragile connections to a destroyed life. He doesn’t want to do it again. 

Shion's mother comes and takes his hand as they leave, already muttering about what to do with so many oranges. Shion smiles, squeezes her hand. For a while they just send people to the fields. Shion helps carry baskets full of oranges, sheets of wheat, the curling gourds of squash and the rotting bells of peppers. Some of the food maybe going bad already, but the seeds might be salvaged. Already a team works to tear up the street, turning the wide curling roadway into the black loam of a garden. As they bring back the food, they pass by the richer areas of No. 6 where the privilege lived. Shion holds his breath through the ghost town. Other neighborhoods of No. 6 are returning like his own Lost Corner, but too much of No. 6 is empty. Shion knows with there are still other people rebuilding their lives much like he and his mother, even if he can’t see them. Shion wonders if they will ever grow big enough, strong enough, sure enough to combine these little enclaves of survivors and become a true city again. They can never go back to what No. 6 once was, but maybe they could find another path. They haven't seen members of the other villages within No. 6 at the agricultural fields. Shion wonders if perhaps the others have found their own food sources, or perhaps they are starving. There's enough work for them to share, not enough hands to pick what's available. With the next meeting maybe he will suggest they send word to the other corners a No. 6, after all what is help if it's not shared. 

An old woman from number six is the first one who starts rasping. She moves into the empty house across from Shion’s mother and members of Lost Corner rotate who stays at her bedside and help her drink hot broth and wipe down her forehead with cool cloths. A week later there are three people in the sick house across from Shion’s home. The teenage girl recovers, as does the young man from the West Block. The old woman doesn’t reach the end of the week.

When a trip to No. 5 is proposed Shion agrees to go. His mother cries and holds his hand, leans her shoulder against his where they sit on the floor surrounded by dogs and the other members of their home. But there is no medicine, baby Shion wheezes as he sleeps. Inukashi’s eyes have grown sunken in anxiety and lack of sleep. Shion has seen that cough steal one person already. With so many people packing each of the houses, a disease like this could spread fast. Not enough nutrition, close quarters, and no medicine creates looming necessity for a trip to request aid. Four others also offered to go. Inukashi isn't one of them, neither is his mother. Shion isn't surprised. They sit by the fire in his home, just family and echo of wind outside. Inukashi comes to sit beside him, knocks against a shoulder with one arm.  
“You're looking for him aren't you?" Shion shrugs. “What would you do if you find him?" Shion doesn't look at Inukashi.  
“Ask him to come home."  
“Come back safe.” Inukashi demands with a sharp headshake. 

When Shion leaves the next day, he finds three cookies in his bag. He tests the edge of one, sweet with a tart bite Shion recognizes. The last of the dried cherries his mother has hoarded. Shion has never met anyone who traveled by foot to No. 5 or any of the other cities. Too much of the world is covered by water, but No. 5 is on their same stretch of land, the only one not separated from them by water. And if no one has ever walked there, then they'll have to be the first. The first three days are warm enough, made light by his companions chorusing song. Shion doesn't join in, doesn't know enough of the music, but sometimes he hums along. The woman from the West Block helps them find edible berries to supplement their meager food. These are things Shion should know, should remember from his own time in school. He’d studied agriculture, had cared about medicine, but there is so much that only applies in books that is lost in application to the dirt under his fingers. But his memory helps and wrapping the sprained ankle of the girl from No. 6. They stop for the day under the shade of the trees so broad it would take four of them to wrap their arms around, each holding the others hand. Foreign birdsong whistles through the trees and Shion closes his eyes to listen, thinks of Nezumi singing. It's clear the next day that the girl with the sprained ankle can't go on with them, so one of the women from the West Block stays behind with her while the remaining three continue. 

Later that afternoon it begins to rain. The dirt of the road grows to slick mud. It clings to Shion's thin shoes. After walking for a few hours in the dripping damp they take shelter in a cave. Moss rings the doorway in the lush green. They huddle just under the lip, but when it's clear the rain is only gaining in ferocity, they inch further back into the cave. After hours pass and the rain has yet to abide, Shion and his comrades search for what firewood is available. The rain has made most of the wood damp and the small fire they start smokes greenly. Slowly, they build it up until the walls of the cave are illuminated in its warm glow. Shion wrings out the damp hem of his shirt. 

For a while he basks by the fire in silence, listening to the rain. Beyond the mouth of the cave, it gives no sign of stopping. As the remaining water from his hair trickles down the back of the shirt, he slips out of his shoes with the squelch. Trying to decide if he can wring out his shoes, Shion startles at the first sound of a harmonica. The man from the West Block sits with his back tilted against the rock wall of the cave, his feet propped out just shy of the flames. The old battered instrument is pressed to his lips as he flickers over the notes. One of the songs they’d sung traveling Shion guesses by the repeat of the melody. The woman from No. 6 hums along, adding the words she remembers. Shion smiles, using his hand and thigh to keep percussion in his own offering to the music. Dinner is meager, even with the fire to brighten the cool of the cave. At least they can gather water to drink from the rain. They pass around the filled bowl and enjoy the refreshing taste while sharing one of Shion's precious cookies. 

As night crowds close to the mouth of the cave they agree to take watch shifts. Shion’s sleep is restless and he’s happy enough to trade it for wakefulness deep in the night. There’s no way to tell the true hour through the rain but Shion imagines it the witching hour as his comrades breaths slip to the rhythm of sleep. Rain shifts into mist, the world wavering beyond the quiet droplets that roll down his wrists and over his fingertips when he extends a hand beyond the overhang. As Shion watches the dark wood, the periphery of his vision catches on the dancing shadows framed to the cave walls. And then in the dark beyond the cave, through the gentle blanket of mist, candlelight bobs and gleams. Shion rises to his feet stepping back quietly to prod his sleeping companions. He never moves his eyes from the light. 

Everyone in the cave stands quiet and ready as the light moves forward, not towards them but on a course that will come near. Shion wonders if they should cover their own fire, wonders who would be out wandering the wood at such late hour in the rain. He stamps down on his own inner hopes. The woman from the West Block readies her slingshot, arm coming up to Shion's line of sight. Shion puts a hand on arm her to still her as the light clears the line of vision. Like Shion's heart had called to that particular hour of night, answer comes in the familiar curve of shoulders and rain-blackened hair. The woman from the West Block still has her slingshot at ready. Without shoes, Shion’s feet slip over the moss at the entrance to the cave, rocketing him forward on his heels in a collision course he would not change for the world. Nezumi, at least, has not lost practice with surprise and catches Shion’s cascading weight without bearing both of them down to the ground. Shion’s arms lock hard around Nezumi’s shoulders swinging them in a tight arc with momentum. 

"Where the hell have you been?" Shion does not let go. He buries his face against Nezumi’s shoulder, his nose digging into the skin under his scarf. Nezumi yelps and pushes Shion back, his hands digging into the rough wet of Shion's coat.  
"You're soaking wet. What are you doing out here? Are you trying to get yourself killed? Idiot." Shion laughs at the angry snap of Nezumi’s voice, drawing Nezumi with him to the cave. Nezumi balks at the others waiting there under the mouth of the cavern. Shion tugs that his hand.  
"Everyone this is Nezumi, Nezumi the rest of my scouting team. We’re traveling to No.5." Nezumi takes in their bedraggled state with an impetuous eye.  
”You're at least eight days travel from there. But they're not very friendly to visitors. What brought on this ill advised plan?" Nezumi jerks his hand away.  
"Well how are we to know what's out there?” Shion glares, “I know how they teach that No.1 sank under the rising sea level, only a few years after the battle on treaties. From what maps we remember No.2 and 3 are too far away. We have to go to No.5.”  
“Well, No.5 closed its borders. No. 4 is in ruins. I haven't visited 2 or 3 myself, they're only accessible by boat. I met a man who traveled there. He said that No.2 was taken over by vegetation. People still live there, but they've destroyed the governing computer. No.5, well they heard about Elyurias and that changed everything.” Shion searches Nezumi’s face. The annoyance is fading, but the confusion lingers.  
Shion smiles, “So does that mean you're coming back?” Nezumi frowns, stepping back again. His arms cross tight over his chest.  
“You still haven’t really answered what are you doing here?” Nezumi demands.  
Shion sighs. He urges Nezumi further into the cavern, out of the rain. The rest of his scouting party cluster by the fire, a respectful distance away. Shion notices the woman from the West Block still loosely holds her slingshot.  
“We’re out of medicine. People are getting sick and I don’t know what to do. It’s probably just a common flu, but with our current lack of nutrition and no medicine I think we’re right to be worried.” Shion folds his own arms and glares at Nezumi, challenging him to find fault in this reasoning. Nezumi’s eyes rake over his face, Shion knows hunger shows in his own cheekbones, the way his fingers show bones thinly against his hands. He tucks his hands, fists balled into his elbows and firms his stance. Slowly Nezumi nods.  
“There are places similar to the West Block, outside the numbered cities, still living on. I wanted to find out more about my people.” Nezumi steps closer, one hand curling up to cup the jut of Shion’s shoulder, “First I searched deep into the forest looking for some trace of our history. Of course No. 6 burned it all. But there are other enclaves, not of my people, that survived. To the East of here there’s a river valley rimmed with houses built into the cliff sides. They told me that there are other tree people, not my clan but maybe we share the some of the same history. They live South of No.6, that’s where I’m going. I want to learn as much as I can. The people in the cliff-valley say there are very few of the tree people left now. I have to go.” Nezumi’s fingers clench and Shion controls a flinch. 

Nezumi isn’t looking at him, but past him. Shion knows that expression, the one fixed on a goal far over his head. Nezumi shakes his head, eyes finding Shion’s own, “There was a girl with the cliff dwellers who knew those forest people. She knew their songs. They’re like my parents songs.” Nezumi shrugs helplessly.  
“Do you think we could find a doctor there?” Shion asks. Nezumi’s eyes widen. His hand drops from Shion’s shoulder as he shrugs again.  
“I don’t remember well, but my people had healers, theirs might too.”  
Shion nods firmly and offers Nezumi a smile, “Well, stay with us tonight and tomorrow we’ll travel to this forest village and see if we can convince them to help us.“ His smile falls and he looks away from Nezumi, “baby Shion is sick. We’ve already lost one of our Corner.” Nezumi doesn’t reach out to him, but Shion feels the weight of his eyes.  
After a moment Nezumi says, “I can do that.” Shion didn’t realized how tense his shoulders had coiled until they relax. He smiles up at Nezumi and receives the faintest quirk of lips in response.  
“You’re still as hopeful as a damn idiot.” Nezumi says with a light shove to Shion’s arm. He brushes past Shion and into the cave. Once Nezumi commits himself to a course of action there’s no dissuading him. Within moments he’s introduced himself to Shion’s traveling companions and is sketching a map of the next days’ travel into the gritty dirt of the cavern floor. Shion waits one more moment at the mouth of the cave, watching. 

Even though Shion is fairly certain they all have a decent idea of the way they’re headed tomorrow they’re not traveling anywhere tonight, there are only a few more hours till morning.  
“We should get some rest.” Shion points out. Nezumi automatically offers to take over the watch and Shion huffs a dry laugh. The other members of the scouting party linger uncertainly on the edge of disagreement, they’ve only just met Nezumi. Shion can see the distrust drier coat from where it’s been before the fire and curls into it, laying down just far enough away not to catch stray sparks, he sees the others follow suit. Shion blinks his eyes shut letting Nezumi’s straight back fade blearily from view. Sometime later the ground next to him shifts. Shion mutters and shoves his face against the unexpected movement. Nezumi’s voice murmurs over his head. Ingrained practice, still just under the surface of Shion’s sleepy mind makes the action of raising the covers and hauling Nezumi to a more comfortable position second nature. Breathing deeply of the comfort of home, Shion murmurs happily and subsides back into sleep. 

Shion wakes to the rough scratch of a gray wool scarf against his nose. It itches and makes him want to sneeze. Shion shifts back. Nezumi doesn’t stir at Shion’s movements. Shion wonders how long Nezumi must have been traveling to make him this exhausted. Some slight part of Shion hopes that perhaps its not just sleep deprivation, that maybe Nezumi intrinsically trusts Shion this much, that he sleeps on undisturbed. The morning light through the cave is weak, just past dawn. 

Shion raises his head and spots the woman from the West Block sitting just within the mouth of the cave. Shion looks back to Nezumi’s sleeping face. He doesn’t look any older, any different. Shion’s heart clenches at his familiar, relaxed expression of slumber. His fingers twitch to brush over Nezumi’s forehead, push his hair back and trace the contours of hips lips, his jaw. Shion doesn’t, they’re going to have to get up and get moving soon enough. In that faint morning light with Nezumi peaceful beside him Shion finally feels the weight of the world around him. It’s almost too surreal a miracle to exist. Shion thinks he should be crying or laughing, shaking Nezumi awake to share this reality where the two of them are next to each other, breathing and alive. Shion’s fingers sneak out to find Nezumi’s and tangle their hands together. Living things are warm. Nezumi doesn’t stir at the touch and Shion feels the boundless well of affection he’d almost forgotten choking up his throat until he does start to cry. Hurriedly he dashes the tears away from the corners of his eyes. Nezumi would give him nothing but grief if he woke up to Shion crying with joy at their reunion. 

Shion’s traveling companions fall back into their musical entertainment, this time joined by the sweet addition of Nezumi’s voice. There’s nothing holy in the sound, the air around them doesn’t hold still listening. The sound is just the passing happiness of an easy walk on a bright warm morning when the world is still fresh-slick new from drying rain. Shion expects some comment on how he hasn’t stopped beaming like an idiot all morning but it doesn’t come. They eat the last of the sweets his mother sent them with. Shion isn’t sure Nezumi sees the symbolism, the closed circle in finishing the last of the dried cherries together, seated just off the hard-packed dirt of the path. Their heading takes them far enough from No.6 that even though they’re passing it on parallel, it’s too far away to be seen. The setting sun finds them at the edge of another dense forest.  
“Let’s stop here. We’re quite close, but I think arriving in the morning will give us a better impression of these people.” Nezumi suggests. No one contradicts his suggestion so they set up a small camp for the night. They huddle around the fire and eat a meager dinner. If they gather edible plants in the next days they’ll have enough food, or if the forest people offer their hospitality. Shion hopes that they’re walking into a peaceful meeting, not a confrontation. 

As they sit by the fire Shion fills Nezumi in on the changes in No.6.  
“I think there are three or four small villages there now. Enough of the population was killed by the bees, or by Elyurias’ destruction of the walls and buildings. Those who are left and those from the West Block have gathered into small communities. Ours is in the neighborhood near my mother’s bakery. A lot of the houses and buildings there survived. We were worried about starving for a while, but our scouting parties have located some food and we’re building a garden so that we don’t have to go as far to support ourselves.” Nezumi nods his approval and Shion continues. “We have less than two hundred people, but we’re all working together to rebuild our lives. I imagine some day, our part of No.6 will be green and flourishing. There are a few small children and babies, I want them to grow up someplace safe and welcoming. But of course, first we have to deal with this sickness…” Shion trails off. Nezumi offers the water jug they’re sharing but Shion shakes his head. “It seems like a common flu or cold, but many people aren’t recovering. They’re lungs get heavy and they die, they suffocate inside themselves. Without the inoculations, many of the people from No.6 are getting quite sick. They’ve never had to worry about fighting off illness before. And while we found food, it’s still not enough and I’m worried that people won’t have the strength to get better. We don’t have anyone with any real medical knowledge.” Nezumi raises an eyebrow. “I’m the best we’ve got!” Shion protests, “just because I gave you stitches doesn’t mean I really know medicine. And what I do know is from No.6 and uses technology and supplies we don’t even have. Some of the people from the West Block remember the old ways. Mom’s learning about herbs, everyone’s trying, but it’s not enough. I don’t know what to do.” Shion slumps down to rest his head on his knees.  
“You’re going to get help,” Nezumi says. “You’re doing the best you can, that’s what matters.” It’s a small comfort, but Shion takes it. 

When they go to bed, Shion still feels thoroughly awake. Nezumi’s arm is a solid anchor over his waist, but his breathing hasn’t deepened to sleep yet.  
“Did you ever think about us when you were gone?” Us could mean Shion, Inukashi, the dogs, the mice, his mother, but Shion knows Nezumi will hear he means ‘me’.  
“Go to sleep.” Nezumi says, arm tightening fractionally. Shion sighs. 

They’ve been wandering the forest for over half a day when they finally find Nezumi’s hidden village. Shion was beginning to doubt, niggling worry over being horribly lost in the forest growing with each hour. Nezumi’s careful eyes, they the way he occasionally touches a tree, or crouches down to examine the dark loam of forest floor had been somewhat encouraging, but Shion is still relieved when Nezumi triumphantly points up. Shion wouldn’t have spotted the shelter woven into the tree branches without Nezumi’s direction. It’s hard to tell if the tree has grown around a house or if the house is woven from the tree and surrounding forest. After a moment of slowly looking around, Shion is able to spot four more houses like it. The other members of the search party start to whisper excitedly. The sound is overridden when Nezumi starts to sing. 

It isn’t a song Shion has heard before, but this one makes the trees rustle in response. The scouting party falls silent as Nezumi sings to the forest. Slowly, other voices join in from high up in the trees. The song descends around them as people start dropping lightly to the ground. Shion steps closer to Nezumi, eyeing the loose ring of people surrounding them, and where more come from further into the trees. Nezumi holds the last note of the song and silence falls. Out of the quiet an old woman steps forward, walking up to Nezumi with a hunchbacked gait. She reaches out a gnarled hand to touch Nezumi’s wrist. Nezumi holds very still as she turns over his hand, staring at the lines of his palm. Finally she bobs her grey head, looking up at each of them before saying, “Welcome.”  
Tension breaks over the word and Shion hears his own sigh of relief echoed by the others in the scouting party.  
“My name is Siobhane and I’m elder here.” She says smiling at them each in turn.  
“I’m Shion,” Shion says when it’s clear Nezumi has completely forgotten manners and introductions. Shion elbows Nezumi in the side.  
“Nezumi.” Nezumi says belatedly. He’s staring around at the people from the trees with a kind of hunted look on his face. Shion wonders if it’s because several of the younger people have the same grey-dark hair that Shion had previously thought so unique to Nezumi, the same silver-pale eyes. Shion surreptitiously takes Nezumi’s hand. When the rest of the scouting party finishes introductions Shion says, “Thank you for your warm welcome. I’ve come to ask two favors.” The old woman cocks her head.  
“Ask them young man.”  
“I come from the fallen city of No.6.” a rustling sweeps through the people around them, tensing stances and hardening faces. Shion presses on, “In the wake of Elyurias’ power there are still good people trying to make a life there, members of the Western Block and citizens of No.6 working together to make gardens and safe homes for our children. But people have started getting sick and no one knows what to do. There’s a baby who might die if we don’t get help.” Shion can’t keep the pleading note out of his voice. A dark niggling thought wonders if baby Shion is still alive. The old woman steps closer, reaching up her thin-boned hand to pat at Shion’s cheek.  
“You’re a good boy.” She muses, “a wise leader. We would be happy to help your people.” Siobhane turns to the assembled crowd around her. “Sunale,” she calls, “Are you fit to travel?” a young woman steps forward. Her stomach still has the residual swell from pregnancy and the bundle strapped to her chest is clearly an infant.  
“It isn’t far to travel.” Sunale says, “I could be ready to leave today.”  
Shion shakes his head, “I couldn’t ask you to put your child at risk. Maybe you can teach me and I can-” Sunale’s laughter cuts him off.  
“We haven’t forgotten the old ways. Don’t worry about my child.” Sunale smiles brightly. The old woman rests a hand on Shion’s forearm.  
“She’s our best healer. You don’t have to worry.” Shion frowns but doesn’t protest for now. “You said you had a two requests.”  
Shion swallows, “Right,” he glances at Nezumi, “I want to know more about the forest people, the people who were murdered by No.6,” Shion says. Nezumi stiffens, flinching and yanking his hand out of Shion’s.  
“Ah,” Siobhane says, “That was a great loss. Those forests were the oldest, the wisest before they burned to the ground. I can tell you anything you want to know.” She’s addressing Nezumi, not Shion. Her eyes never leave Nezumi’s face. “There were many years we thought we had the only survivors.” Nezumi blinks, his mouth tracing silently over the word ‘survivors’. An old man steps forward. He’s younger than the elder but old enough he must have been in his fifties when the forests burned.  
“Who were your parents?” he asks softly. Shion is afraid Nezumi’s about to cry. His eyes are suspiciously glassy. Shion hasn’t seen Nezumi cry since Shion killed someone in cold blood, not since Shion opened his eyes from the darkest blackest night and discovered he was able to breathe and the bullet wound in his chest was only a small lump of scar tissue. Nezumi speaks so softly Shion barely hears the names. The man smiles sadly and opens up his arms. Shion doesn’t think he’s ever seen Nezumi hug anyone else, but now Nezumi is crying and hugging this man who’s murmuring about family and that Nezumi looks so much like his mother. Shion feels tears welling up in his own eyes. This time he doesn’t wipe them away. 

Shion is anxious to get back to No.6, to see baby Shion and his mother and make sure everyone is alright, but Nezumi can’t be pried from the old man’s side. There’s another girl, younger than Nezumi, only a baby at the time of the massacre, and a man older than Nezumi by several years who brings his young daughter and his wife to sit all together in the old man’s tree house, talking for hours. Shion thinks Nezumi looks more settled in his own skin. Shion’s seen Nezumi smile in the past few days, the kind of innocent expression Shion might have once thought lost. He can’t bear to tear Nezumi away from that. Instead Shion learns what he can, watching Sunale grind her herbs as she explains the antibacterial properties of honey. Sometimes Nezumi comes to sit with them. It’s knowledge that was shared by his own people as well. Shion can sense a hunger in Nezumi, the way he looks at everything in the forest village. When they lay curled together under the woven blankets they’ve been loaned by Siobhane Shion can almost imagine staying here. Beside him Nezumi sleeps peacefully, but Shion counts the dark hours of the night with slowly growing worry. Soon, he’ll have to leave, with or without Nezumi. 

“You know,” Siobhane says, following Shion’s line of sight to where Nezumi is helping with repairs to one of the tree houses. Nezumi is shirtless. Shion’s rarely seen Nezumi shirtless, unconsciously free in his movements even with the pull and flash of burn scars still dominating his back. “Your people could move and come live here.” Shion thinks about it, then shakes his head. His mother could bake bread in the forest people’s cracked clay ovens, and baby Shion could grow up running among the trees, chasing the small bounding animals through their branches, but they’re from Lost Corner. Shion still sees his vision of a street lined with old trees, pathways of broken stone winding through lush gardens. Growing up in an orchard, playing in the creek they’re diverting from the broken reservoir the great river under the south side of No.6 feeds. Shion sees his mother’s warm kitchen, the tan wood of the bakery shelves that Shion has filled with books rescued from the West Block. He sees the life he wants to build, the remnants of No.6 he wants to repurpose into something beautiful.  
“No.” Shion smiles, “I don’t think we can. But I’m sure we’ll visit.” he adds. The old woman smiles and nods her approval. 

They leave the next day. Shion doesn’t ask if Nezumi wants to go, and is both pleased and surprised when he has to run slightly to catch up with Nezumi’s purposeful stride as they leave behind the village.  
“I think I’m going to stick with Nezumi.” Nezumi says. Shion cocks his head in question.  
“Rochar remembered my name, but I don’t think I can change it, not now.”  
Shion nods slowly, “Okay.”  
“So, do you have space for one more in Lost Corner?”  
Shion grins, “I think we can make room. My beds a little bigger than yours in the West Block, I imagine we’ll find a way.” Nezumi laughs and tangles their fingers together when Shion takes his hand.

What’s even better than Sunale’s reassurance that she can help baby Shion and is sure he can get better, is Inukashi’s incredulous face when Nezumi walks in. Shion leaves them to their stare off and hugs his mother close. She murmurs her ‘welcome home’ into his hair. Shion squeezes her back, then they both turn to look at Nezumi.  
“He looks better, doesn’t he?” Karen asks. Shion shrugs one shoulder and doesn’t suppress his fond smile.  
“Are you back for good this time?” Inukashi challenges. Shion feels his own breath catch, but the worry is fleeting even before Nezumi sighs grandly.  
“Well,” he declares, “It sounds like there’s work to do here, and I’m already kind of committed to the place.” Nezumi finds Shion’s eyes, “I imagine I’ll be staying quite a while.” The sly quirk of his mouth is such a familiar gesture. In the warm light of his mother’s bakery, with his family clustered around him, Shion finally feels at home.


End file.
